1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic accompaniment apparatus and a method of controlling the same that connect an external electronic musical instrument to the apparatus and generate accompaniments via the external electronic musical instrument, as well as a program for implementing the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an automatic accompaniment apparatus that connects an external electronic musical instrument thereto and generates accompaniments via the external electronic musical instrument has been known.
As an example of such an automatic accompaniment apparatus, there has been proposed an automatic accompaniment apparatus that connects thereto a musical tone generating apparatus (electronic musical instrument), which does not have an automatic accompaniment function, and generates an accompaniment via the musical tone generating apparatus by transmitting accompaniment information generated by the automatic accompaniment apparatus to the musical tone generating apparatus (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. S61-292691, for example).
In the above conventional automatic accompaniment apparatus, however, generation of accompaniment information is carried out by the automatic accompaniment apparatus whereas sounding of accompaniment tones is carried out by the external electronic musical instrument. Thus, not accompaniment data stored in the external electronic musical instrument but accompaniment data stored in the automatic accompaniment apparatus is used as accompaniment data (for example, accompaniment style data) in generating accompaniment information. Therefore, even if accompaniment data stored in the external electronic musical instrument is richer in terms of music than accompaniment data stored in the automatic accompaniment apparatus, accompaniment information is generated using the accompaniment data stored in the automatic accompaniment apparatus, and hence the generated accompaniment information does not enable the external electronic musical instrument to exhibit its accompaniment information generating capability to the maximum.
Also, it is necessary to assume that all kinds of external electronic musical instruments from low to high accompaniment information generating capabilities are connectable to the above conventional automatic accompaniment apparatus, and hence accompaniment data to be stored in the conventional automatic accompaniment apparatus must be intended for general purpose use. Accompaniment information generated by this kind of automatic accompaniment apparatus cannot enable the external electronic musical instrument connected thereto to exhibit its accompaniment information generating capability to the maximum even if an external musical instrument with a higher accompaniment information generating capability is connected to the automatic accompaniment apparatus.